2018-08-04: Rapidly Evolving Circumstances

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  • Cutscene: 2018-08-04: Rapidly Evolving Circumstances
  • Cast: Ethius Hesiod
  • Where: Pearlots Pasture
  • Date: August 4th, 2018
  • Summary: Following the end of Caliburn's War (the scene occurring on July 29th, 2018), Ethius reflects on what most within Rolance would consider an overwhelming victory as he makes his way back to Pendrago. He has much work to do along the way.

During what Lunar's history would come to know as the Battle of Three Hills - one of the most pivotal battles of the present day war between Hyland and Rolance - Hyland did not gain ground. The agitators of the renewed conflict, acting with the benefit of advanced weapons by some insidious benefactor, did not emerge victorious. On this singular point, if success or failure were to be weighted against such a simple standard, then the day was won.

Hyland, instead, lost much ground. Rolance, bolstered by their own outside help, pushed them back further than one believed possible. Thus was the first recognized in a long string of complications, internally noted by one of the battle's more shadowy participants as they took behind a tree with hefty sack in tow. The rustling sounds of its contents sent its owner into a paranoid frenzy, even fully aware of what they were holding. They had to be sure that there were no eavesdroppers. No opportunists. No witnesses. He saw only the dead clad in their reds and their blues, underneath a great cloud of purple haze so thick as to be nearly black. He did not concern himself about the dreary atmosphere. Everyone around him was dead or otherwise in no state to bother him, and that was all he cared about. From there, they continued their work.

They being one Ethius Hesiod, who once again seemed to distance himself from the surrounding mayhem. He acted as though all that truly mattered was what he brought with him into the shade. As he set the sack down on the ground with such care as to not allow it to make a sound, he retrieved an automaton's right hand for further observation. He held keen interest in its every centimeter. Every range of motion. Every possible nook and cranny. He narrowed his eyes as he set it down, and brought his own right hand to his forehead as to better reflect upon the day's events.

He was growing dizzy from his expenditure of energy. Sorcery demanded much of it, and he usually only ever just kept pace with his bizarre dietary habits that seemed to promote ludicrous safety in preparation over all else. Overcooked food items under the dreaded umbrella of 'Black Stuff' were his staple. He pulled down the obscuring yellow bandanna around the lower half of his face to stick another of the unpalatable snacks in his mouth, and chewed on it as he reflected.

At the time he was able to disengage from an opposing agent, Hyland was on a full-on retreat. They were broken. Their riflemen - the ace in the hole that should have decisively broken the long stalemate between the nations - were no longer invincible. Incidental chatter about the Oasis mercenaries and the possible recognition of one Lady Kaguya notwithstanding, he had no window into any further plans or engagements on what organization was left. Rolance seized that opportunity, and made much greater strides inward than he believed possible. Observation of established Hyland camps was no longer feasible, as charging cavalry lines from an emboldened Rolance ensured he needed to remove himself lest he be mistaken for (or perhaps, correctly identified as) a scavenging thief.

He had not much opportunity prior to fully grasp what Rolance themselves managed to obtain. Estimates about the readiness and strength of the Imperial Foreign Auxiliaries, he had to conclude, were well off-base. His plan of action was simple enough prior to the engagements of the day - sabotage the supplies of vulnerable Hyland camps, make a few key assassination attempts at lower levels of command, slow their ability to advance, and maintain observation from any number of determined safe points in which to eavesdrop. All of this to criteria he could not put into thought or written word - only the urgency that he do so. He did what was necessary to ensure, by his measures, Hyland would have been merely stymied from further advance.

His grasp of the situation, it turned out, was incomplete. He knew this to be - as was almost everything about his time aware of himself since he came to in Lacour's mountain ranges on Filgaia - strange. Normally he would have much greater clarity of the situation at hand, he recognized, and what he was seeking to do. Everything ceased to be 'normal' since then. It ocurred to him that he had no real memory of what 'normal' was like, in so much he could have claimed to have witnessed or lived in a situation or period of time he would have deemed 'normal.' Only the importance he placed on the present situation stopped him from lingering on that point for long.

A withdrawal further back into Rolance territory instead provided him a means to reassess the logistics that enabled Rolance's aggressive forward push. One by one, every scavenged item he found in the battlefield was taken out of a sack with such care and caution as though the sound of them scraping with one another would jeopardize his position. He was able to conclude that Rolance had access to humanoid weapons - mannequins, of a kind. He didn't have enough in which to reconstruct a complete one, but his interest in reconstruction was fleeting at best to answer only one further question.

Where did this one piece come from, if not them?

He held a circular item aloft, the vague appearance of a two-ringed coin. Of all the sample pieces he had of the humanoid weapons, this one did not fit in any of them. He recognized it was damaged from being under the hoof of a war horse, but even in his attempts to visualize what it might have been and where it would have fit... he came up blank. His latest attempt, having spurred to try and jam it somewhere within the head and neck of an automaton, was no more fruitful than the other educated hands-on guesses.

Silence passed. He rustled underneath his tunic for a smooth, shiny metallic rock in his possession. The same rock he's had since he came to in Lacour, back on Filgaia. He held it close, as though he didn't even want the light of the sun to bear witness to it. This was an equally meaningless gesture, as the circular piece had nothing to affix to.

Most the rest of the items he could scavenge were decidedly uninteresting, in so much they encompassed items he knew already were in circulation. Items he wanted to remove from circulation - but he saw value in keeping the odd two-ringed coin. He was brought out of his contemplations by the sound of more war horses running through the battlefields. His time here was rapidly growing short, as he suspected Rolance was going to re-fortify the position while they had it. Hyland had been routed, and Rolance found new hope. New fervor, even, after reports widely came out about rumored massacres performed by 'the enemy' even prior to this battle.

Regardless of his allegiances in the battle, he had no desire to have his person identified nor interrogated for his present suspicious activity. The sharpshooter who disengaged from him placed him at considerable exposure risk. To attempt to go deeper into the new Hyland lines was simply infeasible. Rolance's reinvigorated zeal became a new complication, even as it bode poorly for those mysterious benefactors of Hyland. The worst may have been averted, but his work was not over.

As Ethius disengaged with swiftness back further towards Pendrago, out the corner of his eye, he witnessed two strange figures dressed primarily in white and other colors overlooking the plains from the distance - one in green, a man, and one in orange, a woman. Something about them seemed... untouched, by the fields full of ruin and death, free of the ambient mud and grime they would have picked up on their persons had they even so much as walked to that distant hill. They seemed to disappear just as the one in green seemed to turn their head to acknowledge that they were being watched. Their forms seeemed to disperse in a set of colors that matched their dress - green and orange, accordingly.

Whoever they were, they became active during the time he was investigating those strange uncharted islands with the others. Possible additional parties with interest in this, he rationalized. He would keep that matter to himself - as he would so many others - as he moved through what cover he had. Not too far from him, disoriented lizard-men and hulking tiger-men seemed conflicted about where they were standing as they regarded the present end of the battle. Ethius paid them no further mind.

It was imperative he had moved to give reports to certain parties before anyone else could speak of where he was, where he was going, or what he was doing. The circumstances were rapidly evolving well out of his reach. He knew not what would have come if he couldn't keep grasp - only that he must, by any means available to him.